Scaled Down Scales

New Heroes Arrive

...And Take Down the Ice Gargoyles...

1

FEB/17

…With a Few Comments About the Bravery…

…of the Adventurers Waiting in the Wings.

“Pass through this portal and enter the presence of Chillreaver, master of Icehome, greatest among the Dark Queen’s frozen children. Prepare for supplication in the proper manner, and you can enter his fearsome domain and receive his cold gift.” Using his arcane powers, Krasire was able to see through the illusion which was hiding these words.

But he didn’t have much time to figure out what they meant. With the sounds of cracking ice, two of the statues came to life.

At first he had a lot of confidence in his ability to damage them. When the grabbed him, he could still use his mental powers to chip away at them. The dwarven defender who came up here with him — after berating the wounded warriors below as cowards — was able to keep one of them occupied most of the time.

Even when he was grabbed, failed to escape, and imprisoned in an ice-cube jail, he could still hit the Ice Gargoyles and escape with a teleport.

Eventually his mental powers began to flag, and he ran out of teleports. Then his confidence began to flag as well.

Bloodied, he fought on. But he began to wonder if this would be his last fight. A claw attack took him down. And, as he slipped out of consciousness, his logical mind could not fail to notice that the life force that animated his crystals was fading, too.

Avenglen finally found civilization in the small human city of Fallcrest. The High Warden who ruled in his small court seemed unusually familiar with the arts in the area. Warden Markelhay even said he knew the famous Drow Bard himself. Apparently Jerath had spent a short amount of time in Fallcrest before moving on to bigger and better things in the Elsir Vale — to the west. His wife explained that the Bard had built a theater — called The Orb Theater — in the Dwarven city of Overlook. She even suggested her daughter was reporting that his fame had spread to Sayre, a university city closer to the coast.

Relvain Blackaxe gave the fallen Psion a potion of regeneration. Made from Troll blood, the potion would keep the Shardmind on his feet.

Sure enough, Krasire was able to resume his attacks. Relvain wasn’t certain he would ever resume his confidence. The brush with death had weakened his resolve and he called out an apology: “I’m sorry if my weakness caused your death.”

The shieldmaiden, however, was having none of that. “Oh, I’m not going to die. And, with that potion in your bloodstream, I don’t think you will, either.”

She saw the growing recognition in his eyes as he seemed to figure out how the potion could keep on healing him. His renewed determination and fancy footwork helped her take down one of the gargoyles.

Then it was easy for her to force the last statue’s attention to remain on her — she was a Dwarven Defender, after all — and Krasire was able to shift away and bring his mental powers to bear.